Latest Mobile Reviews

Acer's probably not the first name that springs to mind when you're shopping around for a new smart phone. Companies like Apple, Samsung, HTC and Sony might steal all the headlines, but that doesn't mean other brands don't have some interesting tech to offer.

Without a fashionable name and tonnes of advertising to draw your attention, Acer is hoping that a quad-core processor and an affordable price tag will help catch your eye. The Liquid E2 is a 4.5-inch phone running Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean, with an 8-megapixel camera on the back.

It's coming soon to the Three network, although it hasn't yet specified what plans it'll be available on. You can preorder it from Handtec now though, for £196 SIM-free. 

If you're after a beautifully designed, fashionable bit of kit to whip out of your pocket and impress your friends in the pub... then no. The E2's ugly design, with its large, circular speaker grilles is about as far from attractive as it's possible for a phone to be. Its easily scratched plastic back panel means it's not going to get any better looking over time, either.

What it does have is a low price tag. You can rest assured what money you have spent has been put towards good all-round performance, rather than design. Its quad-core chip gave good results for the money and the screen -- while not impressively high resolution -- has quite bold colours. 

If you're after an Android phone with plenty of power for under £200, the Liquid E2 is worth a look. Alternatively, save up a little more money and go for the Google Nexus 4. It's £40 more, but its 720p screen, slightly faster processor and sharper design makes it a worthy upgrade if sartorial elegance is important to you.

So you fancy a sleek, luxurious phone that simply oozes style? Step away from the E2. It's the most sinfully unattractive thing I've laid my hands on in quite some time -- and I'm not just talking about phones. It starts bad on the front -- there's a huge white bezel surrounding the screen, with a very cheap-looking plastic ridge around that.

The back panel is an off-white colour that doesn't match the front and it has two speaker grilles at the top and bottom that look like those round trays you cook pizzas in. The plastic surrounding the one at the top overlaps with the camera unit, making it look like it's been hurriedly squashed in before the plastic had cooled and hardened. Yes, it's cheap, but I don't think that's an excuse for being quite so repulsive.

I at least hoped that the E2 was packing some truly impressive speakers beneath those circular grilles -- particularly as it also bears the DTS surround sound name -- but I was less than impressed. The sound could go quite loud, but I found it distorted unpleasantly at high volumes. It might be okay for YouTube clips or podcasts featuring mostly voices, but don't try blasting your Spotify collection out of it. 

The phone doesn't feel particularly flimsy, but nor does it feel like it can take a battering. The screen isn't made from toughened Gorilla Glass, and the matte plastic back panel is very easily scratched, so keep your keys away from it. The body feels fairly rigid though and the buttons have a satisfyingly firm click to them.

It measures 131mm long and 68mm wide so it won't appeal if you're after a palm-sized mobile such as the HTC One. Nor will you appreciate its 10mm thickness, which is very much at the fatter end of what I'd expect from new phones.

Around the edges you'll find a volume rocker, power button, 3.5mm headphone jack and micro USB port. Underneath the case is a microSD card slot, which you'll really need to use, as the phone has a mere 4GB of storage. This is a major limitations, as you can't install apps to the card, so you'll need to make sure all your music and videos are on it in order to leave as much room on the phone for apps as possible.

The E2 packs a 4.5-inch screen with a 960x540-pixel resolution, giving a pixel density of 245 pixels per inch. Tech fans among you will have spotted that that's quite a bit less than the Full HD screens of the HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S4 (441ppi), nor is it offering much challenge to last year's 720p phones such as the Galaxy S3 or Nexus 4 (320ppi).

Medium sized text and high resolution images look fine on the screen, although they lack the clarity you'd see on even a 720p display. If you read a lot of fine text on Web pages or ebooks, it might be worth pushing your budget for a higher definition screen.

It's quite bright though and surprisingly bold for a budget phone. It has something of a cold colour cast to the screen, which is a bit of a shame, but colours are nonetheless punchy, making it good for watching your favourite YouTube clips.

The E2 comes running Android 4.2.1. That's a couple of versions behind the latest release -- Android 4.3 -- but given the low price, and the fact that 4.3 isn't freely available on any handsets yet, it's hardly a sticking point. I wouldn't expect frequent updates, however.

Rather than tweak the software beyond recognition, Acer hasn't really done much to change basic Android. You have five homescreens for your apps and widgets, with four icons remaining along the bottom for your most used tools. Apps not on the homescreen are kept in a grid of icons.

With essentially stock Android on board without needless bells and whistles, the E2 is quite simple to operate and easy to get to grips with if you've not used Android before. There are a few Acer apps included, such as a cloud storage service, backup software and a barcode scanner, but they're easy to ignore.

It's powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core processor. Four cores is an impressive amount for a phone of this price -- I'd typically expect dual-core at the budget end of the market. To balance it out, it packs 1GB of RAM, rather than the 2GB I'd expect to see on higher end phones.

To see how it measures up against the competition, I fired up my benchmark tests. It returned a score of 1,356 on the Geekbench test, which is a very healthy score for such an affordable phone. By comparison, the new HTC One Mini achieved 1,388 on the same test and that will set you back around £360 -- although its slick metal design does account for much of that price. With its faster processor, the Nexus 4 achieved just under 2,000 on the same test.

In my own use I found it to be satisfyingly swift. I rarely found any juddering in swiping around the Android interface, while menus and apps loaded without much delay. It made light work of Riptide GP and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City too. I doubt it would handle the more graphically intense N.O.V.A 3 quite as well, but that's something a moot point as the game is too big to fit on the phone's meagre storage.

Just below one of the E2's pizza trays, you'll spy an 8-megapixel camera. I'd usually expect to find 5-megapixel cameras on the budget end of the market, so I'm quite impressed at the megapixel count here. Of course, megapixels aren't everything so I took it for a spin to see how it performs.

In short, I wasn't hugely impressed. The colours and exposure were both fairly good, but it didn't give a very clear image. Looking full-screen, it's easy to see the fuzzy edges on the chairs. It also had quite a bit of image noise in the shadowy areas of the scene. It might have 8 megapixels, but it hasn't put them to particularly good use.

It's about par for the course for most budget-end smart phones though. It's not going to turn you into a photography master, but you won't struggle to keep your Facebook friends updated with pictures of your pets.

Acer has popped in a 2,000mAh battery, which it reckons can provide up to 9 hours of 3G talk time. That's not a bad estimation, but it will of course be under optimal conditions. In your own use you can expect that time to vary wildly. With light use, you shouldn't struggle too much to eke out a full day from the phone -- even a little more if you're very careful.

If you're more enthusiastic, expect that time to drop considerably. Keeping the screen brightness ramped to the max is a sure way to lose power, while streaming high-definition videos or playing demanding games will guzzle the juice faster than a CNET reviewer at an open bar. Like all smart phones, you should definitely expect to be charging it every night.

With its quad-core processor and bold screen, the Acer Liquid E2 will happily munch its way through most tasks you're likely to throw at it -- although serious gaming is severely limited by its internal storage. Its affordable price does mean you won't need to decide between buying it or paying your rent. It's a good all-round budget option, but you will need to put up with its miserable design.

View the original article here

Sony wowed us last year with the introduction of its Xperia Z phone. Instead of the plasticky, chunky bodies of its previous phones, the Z had a stunning all-glass design and was among the first top-end smart phones to provide full protection from errant liquid-splashes. 

With a four and a half star score and our much-coveted Editor's Choice award to its name, the Z didn't make it easy for its successor to impress. With a few key tweaks, including a ridiculously powerful quad-core processor, a new aluminium band around the edge and a 20.7-megapixel camera, the Xperia Z1 is ready to show its older brother who's boss.

At £600, it's certainly not competitive when it comes to affordability, but Sony is hoping its impressive spec sheet will make the Z1 a worthy purchase.

It's available now on a range of plans. You can get it free from £29 a month on a two-year contract, or SIM-free from £550. 

With its sleek glass front and back and new aluminium frame, the Xperia Z1 is an undeniably beautiful piece of kit. The waterproof design helps keep it safe from all manner of liquids that would put an end to most other phones and its screen is better than ever. Its searingly mighty processor also makes it the most powerful phone I've ever tested. 

It's not perfect though. Although it has the same screen size as the Samsung Galaxy S4, it has a bigger body, making it a little cumbersome. Some of Sony's software tweaks aren't particularly welcome either, and will almost certainly slow down the time it takes to receive updates.

Finally, although the camera has seen an impressive bump to 20 megapixels, the images it produces aren't anything special. If you're after a phone with enough juice to tackle any task you're likely to throw at it, you'd be wise to opt for the Z1, but there are various other options to consider.

The Galaxy S4 should certainly be at the top of your list -- it's extremely powerful, has a brilliant screen and a camera capable of producing beautiful results. The S4 Active has similar specs but, like the Z1, has a waterproof body, protecting it from the elements. Alternatively, the all-metal HTC One not only looks superb, but it too has a Full HD screen and powerful quad-core processor.

With only a glance, you might not immediately be able to tell much difference between the Z1 and its predecessor. It's roughly the same physical size, the sticking-out power button is in the same spot and the Sony and Xperia logos sit in the same place. The noticeable difference is the addition of a dedicated camera shutter button and an aluminium band around the edge.

The use of metal gives the phone a noticeable, luxurious feel as well as apparently strengthening it. The previous Z had slightly harsh edges, but the rounded aluminium feels much more comfortable. The downside is that the similar aesthetic makes it difficult to really show off that you have the latest technology in your hand. You'll likely have to actually point it out if you want someone to notice, and in my experience, "look at the metal parts on my phone" is a pretty awful conversation starter.

It maintains the same glass front and back which looks every bit as beautifully stark as it did on the previous model. Although they're toughened, any glass will scratch and break if you treat it brutally enough. You'll want to keep it in a case if you're clumsy, not to mention always carry a cleaning cloth to polish the fingerprints off.

Like the Xperia Z, the Z1 is completely waterproof, surviving at a depth of 1.5 metres for up to 30 minutes. Even if you're not a diver who likes to Tweet among the corals, waterproofing for a phone is undeniably handy. Ever dropped your phone in the bath, splashed something on it in the kitchen or taken a call in the rain? The Z1 will cope fine with all of that.

It achieves total waterproofing by covering its main ports with rubberised flaps. It improves over the Z, however, by waterproofing the internal chamber of the headphone jack, meaning that it doesn't need to have its own cover. You'll no longer have to unclip a flap each and every time you pop in your headphones and, crucially, you don't have to worry about re-sealing afterwards -- something I found rather annoying on the Z.

With a 5-inch screen, it was bound to be a big blower, but the Z1 doesn't do itself any favours. It has a very wide bezel around the display, meaning that the body is very large. It's noticeably bigger than the Galaxy S4, even though they have the same size screen. The wide bezel also doesn't look particularly good -- it's worlds apart from the razor-thin bezel on LG's new G2 smart phone.

If you're looking for a phone to easily slide into your pocket, this isn't it. Make no mistake -- it's a big chap. I suggest going hands on in a shop before you buy if you're concerned about its size.

The Z1 maintains the 5-inch screen size as well as the Full HD resolution of its predecessor. Sure, that's not an improvement for a new generation phone, but when you've already packed in a ludicrous amount of pixels into your phones, there's not really much room for improvement. Plus, anything more than 1080p in a device of this size would be completely redundant as your eyes can't physically make out the pixels at such a high level.

Sony reckons there have been improvements though. It now boasts the 'Triluminous' display technology that Sony plonks into its high-end TVs, which apparently improves colour and brightness. While that's mostly marketing nonsense, there's no denying that it's a great screen.

Side by side with the Galaxy S4, it doesn't have the same eye-popping colour saturation, but I actually preferred the Z1's more natural tones -- the S4 can be over the top at times. It's incredibly sharp, with even the smallest text looking crystal clear and the snow flurries and mountain ridges on my favourite test video were displayed with breathtaking clarity.

It's bright enough to scorch out your retinas too, once you ramp it up, but still manages to maintain colour tones. Viewing angles aren't brilliant though. Although the image itself doesn't distort when viewed from the side, colours become washed out and blacks turn into more of a grey shade.

View the original article here

Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and Sony Xperia Ultra might steal the limelight when it comes to screen sizes, but what if you're not a 'Droid fan?

Check out the Nokia Lumia 625. Its 4.7-inch screen is the biggest you'll find with Windows Phone on board. Better yet, it can use 4G data networks for super speedy downloads. At £200 on pay as you go, it's among the most affordable 4G phones around right now.

The Lumia 625 is available now and you can get it free from £26 a month on a two-year contract, or SIM-free from £310. 

If screen size above all else is important to you, you need 4G data speeds and you fancy swiping around the colourful tiles of Windows Phone, then yes. It's the biggest Windows Phone device to date, with plenty of room for photos and videos. Make no mistake though -- the 625 is a budget phone with specs to match. 

The low resolution display doesn't impress and the dual-core chip struggled at times with more demanding tasks. The camera also isn't good enough for anything more than the most casual of tasks and the Marketplace still receives apps long after Android or iOS.

Still, Windows Phone is simple and quite fun to use, and with its affordable price tag and 4G gubbins, the 625 is a fair option. Alternatively, check out the Acer Liquid E2 -- although the screen is slightly smaller, it has a decent processor, loads more apps and a similarly affordable price.

Its 4.7-inch screen size makes the Lumia 625 not only the largest of Nokia's Windows-based phones, but the largest Windows Phone device from any manufacturer currently. That naturally means that the device itself is on the chunky side.

It measures 133mm long, 72mm wide and comes in at 9.2mm thick. That's longer and wider than the Lumia 920, but slightly undercuts its thickness. At 159g, it knocks almost 30g off the 920's weight, too. If you want a phone to slide more easily into your jeans then you'd be better off looking at the Lumia 620 or even splashing out slightly more on the 720 -- its smaller size makes a surprising difference when you hold them in each hand.

Visually, there's no question that the 625 is part of the Lumia family. Its rounded edges and brightly coloured plastic body give it the same toy-like aesthetic present on most of Nokia's current phones. It's fairly attractive -- assuming you appreciate bold colours -- and is more suited to a party with cheap vodka in paper cups than expensive bubbly in crystal glasses. If you want a Lumia to match your sleek suit, you might be better off with the aluminium-clad Lumia 925.

The stiff, one-piece plastic back means the 625 feels very sturdy. There are none of the usual creaks and clicks when it's squeezed that you might find on cheaper big phones. The volume, camera and power buttons have a satisfying click to them, too. It won't survive a three-storey drop, but it's unlikely to crack in two if you plonk it on your desk too aggressively.

Around the edges you'll find a 3.5mm headphone jack and a micro USB port. Pop the case off -- a very awkward thing to do -- and you'll find slots for your SIM card and microSD card. I should note that you can't install apps to the microSD card. The phone has 8GB of storage, which is plenty of room for the essentials, but if you plan on storing a lot of music then you'll need to save it to an external card.

The Lumia 625 might be a lot bigger than the regular 620, but Nokia hasn't seen fit to increase the pixel count with it. It has the same 800x480-pixel resolution, but as they're spread over such a large area, it results in a pixel density of only 198 pixels per inch. Even up against the Lumia 620 (245ppi), that doesn't impress and against the Nexus 4's 320ppi, it's pretty laughable.

Unsurprisingly, fine text isn't very sharp. The Windows Phone tiles, while usually crisp and clear, have a fuzziness to their edges that's hard to ignore, particularly if you've spent much time with higher resolution devices. While the sheer size of the display gives plenty of room for videos and photos, the low amount of pixels means that high resolution pics lack the same eye-popping clarity you might hope for.

Its colours aren't awful but they really don't have the same richness seen on other Lumias. For the relatively affordable price, it's about what you should expect though. If you want a big screen to enjoy YouTube clips and the odd bit of Netflix and don't want to spend a lot, it'll be fine, but if you're after rich videos and luscious-looking movies, you won't be impressed.

View the original article here